Actually One of the Better Excuses
by DezoPenguin
Summary: Lutecia is looking forward to her anniversary date with Vivio. Vivio, however, has other things on her mind when she wakes up in a cell in the hands of kidnappers! A Shadowverse story.
1. Chapter 1

_A/N: This story takes place in RadiantBeam's "Shadowverse" setting (which the Lutecia/Vivio pairing pretty much gives away in ten seconds) and is equally obviously another of my Magic Librarian!Vivio fics._

~X X X~

Lutecia Alphine slid her hands down along her flanks, smoothing the material of her dress, and regarded herself critically in the full-length mirror.

"What do you think, Caro?" she asked her friend.

Caro looked at the other woman seriously, a slight, thoughtful frown on her face. The shimmering black fabric clung to Lutecia like a second skin. It left her arms bare but covered her from neck to ankle, molding itself to her tall, sleekly curvaceous figure. The slit up the right side came far enough up the hip that too dramatic a movement would reveal whether the black silk mesh covering the uncovered leg was a stocking or pantyhose. The long sweep of Lutecia's violet hair falling to brush the back of her knees added color and contrast, the four-inch heels of her shoes added a little something extra to her walk, and the vertical oval cut-out in the center of the dress's chest was probably unnecessary, but Caro figured it would appeal to its target audience.

She grinned widely, showing teeth. Her momentary seriousness had just been to tease her friend.

"I think Vivio's eyes are going to fall out of her head when she gets a look at you."

Lutecia smiled, showing both a little smugness and a bit of nervousness about her appearance.

"You don't think it's too much?"

"That kind of depends on where you're going," Caro spoke from nine years of steady dating experience, which was the kind of thing that happened when one met one's perfect guy at the age of ten, invested four years in getting him to finally ask her out, and stayed together from that point on. "If it's for a burger and a movie, then yes, it's too much."

"We have reservations at Avercini's at seven, followed by tickets to the Memorial Belkan Opera's one-night-only performance of _Sankt Kaiser der Traurigkeit_ and finishing up with cocktails at Ember after the show. It's the anniversary of our first date."

"That's fine, then. But...I don't think that you're going to have much chance of getting Vivio to go along with that plan."

Lutecia blinked—almost flinched. She'd obviously put a lot of thought and planning into this special occasion, and Caro's words were worrying.

"W-why not?"

"Because," the petite summoner said, her grin growing even wider, "you're wearing that dress, and I'm pretty sure that Avercini's has storage closets."

"Caro!"

~X X X~

Takamachi Vivio's head was pounding.

The eighteen-year-old librarian returned to consciousness rather slowly. She seemed to be swimming up through a jet-black sea, rising to a pinpoint of light that beckoned from above her. She reached out for the light, and suddenly it exploded outwards, opening up into a full vision of a cold, gray room of bare concrete walls and floor. A moment later, she realized that she was not seeing a vision but that she herself was lying on the floor of that room, her cheek pressed up against the rough, gritty surface.

Vivio tried to sit up, but her stomach gave a sudden lurch, and she decided not moving for a while would be better. Several minutes of lying still and taking slow, deep breaths helped get her into a state where she was fairly certain she wasn't about to revisit her breakfast. Carefully, she tried sitting up again and made it without succumbing either to nausea or a wave of dizziness.

"That's progress," she said aloud. "Burning Glory, where are we?"

There was no reply.

"Burning Glory?"

She glanced down at her hand, realizing that the familiar weight of her Intelligent Device's standby form was missing from her finger.

Now she was worried.

Vivio glanced around herself. The concrete room was around ten feet by ten feet, with a large steel door that had no handle on this side and showing the heads of a number of bolts or rivets holding on plates that allowed for a shuttered slot near the base. The whole arrangement screamed "cell" to her.

_So how did I get here?_ she wondered. She searched her memory, despite the message from her aching head telling her that it would prefer it if she didn't request anything particularly notable from it for the next few hours.

She'd arrived for work at the Bureau HQ like she always did in the mornings. She'd grabbed a breakfast pocket containing eggs, rice, and synthetic vegetables at one of the carts on the second concourse as she didn't _always_ do...but would have to confess she _did_ do a good three-fourths of the time so long as her mothers weren't within earshot. She'd taken the glide-ramp up to the fourth level, input her credit code to get a caramel milk from the vending machine, and...

Nothing.

Had she forgotten the incident? Vivio had learned about traumatic amnesia in her combat training classes. But she didn't feel like she'd been knocked out. She didn't have any body aches or damage to her Infinity Library staff uniform. And the ache in her head was generalized, not emanating from a single spot. Besides which, even a sneak attack should have triggered her automatic defenses, including Burning Glory's autoguard. She probed her scalp with her fingertips and didn't find any spot that was more sore than any other spot.

_Drugged_, she thought ruefully. Automatic magical defenses might or might not protect her from poisonous gases in the atmosphere, but they definitely wouldn't against ingested drugs. _I guess Nanoha-mama was right about how skipping breakfast would be bad for my health._

As if her realization was some kind of signal, a communications screen opened up in the cell a couple of feet in front of her. The face on the screen was a woman with lime-green hair that tumbled in loose curls over her shoulders. Her face was attractive, but had crow's-feet coming in around her eyes and her lips had a tight, pinched expression when she wasn't talking.

"Good afternoon, Miss Librarian," she said with patently false cheerfulness. "I hope you had a nice nap. You'll need to be well-rested for the work you'll be doing."

That was kind of odd. Vivio could see why her captor would play coy with her own name, but Vivio's? That didn't make sense.

"If it's all the same, I already have a job, and I'm not really looking for another one," Vivio said. She was only eighteen, after all, and wanted to sound cool in the face of danger.

"Oh, I think you'll take this one when you hear about our benefits package."

"Benefits?"

"We'll let you keep your life."

"Oh."

That wasn't really a good sign. Kidnapping for ransom was one thing; Vivio had a lot of personal connections to various groups that might pay well for her safe return, but this seemed to be more about her _abilities_ than her _value_. That had happened once before, when Jail Scaglietti had kidnapped her in order to serve as the mind-controlled ignition key for the Cradle. That kind of thing was far outside the ordinary scope of professional crime.

_Amateur_ criminals, as Fate-mama had told her, were usually more trouble than professionals. They had strange motivations. They had no experience, so they got nervous and rattled. They rarely knew what they were doing, and so felt a desperate need to act like they were in control even when things were completely falling apart around them. And, distressingly often, they were involved in hyper-destructive acts of terrorism, either on purpose or by accident.

"What do you want me to do?" Vivio asked nervously.

"Why, to do your job," the woman replied. "The skills of the Infinity Library archivists are legendary, and you will no doubt be motivated to do your very best."

With that, the screen winked out.

~X X X~

"Very nice, Miss Pacifica," the lime-haired woman's associate complimented her.

"Thank you, Dante. We do what we can. I think that we've made our position clear to our guest. The only real question is whether she has the skills to do the job."

Dante Lucerne frowned. He was a pretty man—_handsome_ really would have been inaccurate—with long, silver-blond hair and soulful gray eyes. The two of them had been treasure hunters together for over a dozen years now, snatching discoveries ahead of legitimate archaeologists like the Scrya clan and selling them on the dimensional black market. Their discovery of this facility, though, believed to have been abandoned centuries ago when the Garean hordes overran this world, would be enough to set them up in luxury for the rest of their lives.

Presuming, of course, they could dredge its secrets out of the archives.

"Do you have doubts?" Dante asked.

Miss Pacifica tossed her head.

"You know me, Dante. I always doubt. It would take a team of librarians six months to make sense of this facility's archives and the spirits only know how long to actually go through the books for the information we need."

"Which is why we kidnapped the girl. The advanced search magic of the Bureau's library elite is the only chance we have. And the fact that the girl had an Intelligent Device with her"—he gestured to the containment unit holding the ring—"tells me that she must be a high-end talent."

Miss Pacifica nodded. They knew that they were pressed for time. Their discovery of this facility wouldn't go unnoticed forever, and the legitimate Alduin authorities would move in. Neither she nor Dante was ready to pass up the prize: the royal treasury of Aldu! The historical records—she was legitimately a scholar, despite her rather casual attitude towards the sanctity of archaeological data—said that the last king had set aside a significant cache in anticipation of having to flee, so as to insure a luxurious exile. Money, art treasures, and magic were stored in preparation for his escape, only the Dark King's Mariage hordes had overrun Aldu far faster than had been expected. The royal family had been slaughtered with the rest of Aldu's government, and the cache had been left, eternally waiting for them.

The treasure hunters' research had suggested that no one had ever discovered the Alduin fortune. The Gareans hadn't cared; they were interested in conquest rather than loot, and by the time their dominion had fallen no one remembered. It was still out there, waiting. Just like this facility had been, with its systems cold and quiet, waiting for someone to awaken them as Miss Pacifica had.

"It's too bad about that Intelligent Device in its way, though," Dante said. "The girl's ID data is on it, and we can't access it like we could an ordinary comm terminal. It's much more effective to bribe or threaten someone when you can make it personal, and their name is key to that."

"I'll make her tell us before she gets to work. Getting her to say 'yes' to anything, even a little request like that, helps manipulate the subconscious towards making her more accepting of later demands." She'd put herself through university by selling used cars. "Still, I can't think it matters very much. There's no mistaking that uniform, so we know she really is a librarian, not a supply clerk or something useless to us like that."

A loud, metallic ringing echoed over the surveillance system they had on the girl's cell. Both of them whirled towards the video display.

"Um, actually, Miss Pacifica, I think maybe we really could have used that information."

~X X X~

Vivio, it must be admitted, was a bit of an impulsive hothead when it came to diving into situations. "Act now" would always be preferred to "wait and see," whether the subject matter was professional or personal. But her decision to try and escape right away wasn't because of that. _Well, not entirely because of that,_ she amended.

But it made sense. The woman had called her "Miss Librarian" and had talked about Vivio being there to use her archive-scrying spells. In other words, they didn't want Takamachi Nanoha's daughter or the Sankt Kaiser's clone; she'd just been the handiest librarian to be snatched up. So they didn't know her capabilities, and wouldn't be prepared for them. They were expecting to be guarding an office worker, not someone who'd had combat training before her love of books had pulled her into her current job.

She also really didn't want to wait around to be rescued. The last time she'd been kidnapped her mother and several friends had had to save her, and while she'd only been six at the time Vivio didn't want to be the kind of burden who went through life making her loved ones constantly bail her out of trouble.

And she was supposed to have a date with Lutecia that evening!

Vivio stood up and took a deep breath. The headache was receding the longer she was awake, luckily. She just needed to remember her magic use without her Device's help. Thankfully, Nanoha-mama had been a strict teacher in that respect; she hadn't let Vivio even _get_ a Device until she was ten. So she'd used to be pretty skilled at using magic without having Burning Glory as a crutch.

_So what am I doing wrong?_ she thought to herself when her Barrier Jacket did not start taking shape. She reached for the magic again, trying to form the protective garb, but nothing worked. She couldn't quite grasp the mana she needed to—

_Crap._ She was under the effects of an Anti-Magilink Field. Ever since Jail had rediscovered that once-lost Belkan technology, it was getting into the hands of more and more criminals, despite the Bureau's best efforts to stop it. The idea was certainly a good one in terms of prison design, but it made the escape rather more difficult.

The good news was, it was possible to use magic in an AMF. Vivio's mamas and their friends had developed the techniques while fighting Scaglietti. It required a significant amount of power, to be able to overwhelm the force that prevented a mage from linking mana, but, well, power Vivio had. Skill in using that power was a different proposition, but as far as access to brute force, that she had covered.

That reminded her that Belkan-style attacks which augmented physical assaults from within instead of projecting magic damage against an enemy would not be affected by the AMF, so at least she'd only be suffering power loss on one end of the spell instead of both. And since her first target wouldn't be a person, but the cell door...

Vivio punched her fist into her palm.

"Barrier Jacket! Royal Mode, set up!"

The triangular rune of Belkan magic swelled into place beneath her feet. The magic seemed to flow like syrup, thick and heavy, but it shone with rainbow light and her uniform vanished, replaced in an instant by her blue-gray bodysuit and short white jacket, with armor-like gauntlets covering her fists. The effect, she decided, was like exercising with with weights or doing combat training under the burden of Nove's special limiter bands.

Vivio grinned. Under that analogy, she supposed that she could look at this as a challenge!

Channeling her magic, she took a stance and punched out in a Strike Arts technique that focused the power of her magic into the blow, enhancing it like a Belkan strike technique. The steel door rattled at the impact of the metal gauntlet, and Vivio launched a second blow, a third, a fourth. Dents appeared in the thick plate, but it was the concrete where the hinge-pins had been set that gave way in the end. Her fifth punch ripped the door free of its moorings in a shower of gray dust and set it crashing into the opposite wall.

Two men came running from Vivio's left as she stepped out into the hall. Both wore sturdy, tan work jackets, khaki trousers, and heavy boots; one man had a bright blue beard and the other wispy brown hair and deep, sunken eyes. Both of them carried mass drivers, heavy rifle-like weapons that hurled metal slugs or flechette clouds at high velocity. They'd function perfectly under AMF conditions, making their choice sensible for the guards.

"What do you think you're doing?" roared Sunken Eyes, raising his weapon. Next to him, Bluebeard did the same. "Get your hands up and hold still!"

"Um...no?" Vivio replied. She launched herself at them—literally, as she was flying after the first step. They fired, probably by reflex rather than by plan as shooting a kidnap victim one wanted to do something was generally considered counterproductive. One's shot missed entirely, her sudden motion throwing off his trajectory so that the flechettes rattled off the walls and floor behind her. Vivio was flying directly at Bluebeard, though, so it was virtually impossible for him to miss. Unfortunately for him, it was also virtually impossible for him to hurt her; Vivio's Barrier Jacket shed the kinetic energy of the projectiles like an umbrella shedding raindrops. An instant later, her armored fist crashed into his jaw with an audible snap of bone and sent him sprawling a good five feet away. She landed, and while Sunken Eyes tried to turn she crashed her elbow into his hands, knocking the mass driver loose.

Vivio grabbed the guard by the lapels and shoved him up against the wall, hard enough that he grunted with the impact.

"What kind of monster are you?" he babbled. "There's supposed to be an AMF down here!"

"I'm a monster who doesn't like being kidnapped!" she roared at him. "Now tell me everything!"

"I'm just a hired hand, lady, honest! I don't know anything!"

"Who hired you?"

He hesitated, apparently having at least some amount of honor among thieves, or at least fear of his employer. She rammed him against the wall again, not that hard but more as a reminder.

"A g-guy named Lucerne! A real pretty boy. He wanted us as hired hands!"

"To do what?" _Thump_.

"W-we got into Bureau HQ with false ID. Lucerne had made sure the food-cart guy was out. All I had to do was slip the drugged food to the first librarian that stopped by. Vik had another cart on the third concourse, same deal. Then we just followed, pretended to take you to medical when you passed out, but really smuggled you out in a ship Lucerne had waiting. After that we were just extra guards, to keep an eye on you."

"Where are we?" _Thump._

"Aldu. Some old ruin out in the mountains."

Aldu, she remembered, was Administered World 41, a former possession of the Belkan Empire. It had been conquered by Garea during the era of the Dark King Ixpellia, then later was the staging ground for a battle between the Hegemony and the "Thunder God," Dahlgren, a generation before Olivie Sedgbrecht, and—

_And maybe this isn't the best time to be thinking of ancient history?_ she reminded herself.

"How many people are here?"

"Just five: me, Vik, and Tobias, then Lucerne and his partner, Miss Pacifica."

"Who's Tobias?"

"He's with me and Vik. He's a mage, so he's on guard outside where the AMF doesn't reach."

"What rank?" It was always nice to know the strength of the opposition.

"How the hell would I know? It's not like he goes in for formal tests, right?"

_Thump._

"_Guess._"

"I don't effing _know_! He'd better than the cop mages we've fought in the past; we used to be mercs on Faurus."

"Is there anything else I ought to know? Think hard, 'cause you don't want me annoyed that you overlooked any little surprises."

"I don't know, really! I don't even know if Lucerne or Miss Pacifica are mages!"

"Then I guess we don't have anything to talk about." She pulled back her fist to knock him out, then stopped. A physical knockout could cause serious injury, and it wouldn't hurt to test her ability in these relatively safe conditions, either. Vivio pointed at his chest, then once again summoned her magic, this time for the casting of an actual spell.

"Radiant Shooter!"

The bullet-like orb spat from her fingertip into Sunken Eyes' chest and instantly put him under. Vivio put him down, then grinned girlishly. _Lutecia would be so proud of me, interrogating that guy!_ She'd pretty much played it like she'd seen it in books, since she didn't have any training, but it seemed to have gone well. _It's too bad I don't have Burning Glory; he could have recorded it so I could play it back later and have her give me pointers on my technique._

~X X X~

Lutecia sneezed.

"Bless you."

"Thanks, Caro."

"I guess I'd better get going. I know you don't want me underfoot for your date!"

~X X X~

Belatedly, Vivio realized that it might have been nice if she'd asked Sunken Eyes for directions before knocking him out. Thinking about Burning Glory, though, had reminded her that she definitely needed her Device back, not only because he was an important partner and friend but because without him she didn't have any way to call for transport home!

She took a deep breath. This was clearly a job for scrying magic, and that was something she was good it; indeed it was the point of her work as a librarian. Vivio held out her hands, summoning the spell; the light flickered a bit as she extended her perceptions, but she held the effect against the AMF.

"Initiating wide-area search. Extending awareness. Targeting: Intelligent Device Burning Glory." If she'd still _had_ Burning Glory, she could have let him maintain the WAS while she went about her escape, but without him she had to do it all on her own. Parallel processing of spells was one thing, but actually having her consciousness in two places at once was the kind of multitasking that required an AI assist. Her search moved outward from her position in a spiral pattern, seeking her companion.

~X X X~

"What's she doing?" Dante asked, looking over Miss Pacifica's shoulder at the surveillance screen.

"It's some kind of scrying spell, from the look of it." She bit her thumb nervously. "How is this _happening_? She's a _librarian_, by the saints. She's not supposed to be able to knock down steel doors, fly, and shrug off weapons fire under AMF conditions."

"Is the AMF working? We could send in the mage to subdue her if it's not."

"Yes, definitely; I tested it when we locked the girl up."

"Then how is it happening?"

"I don't _know_, blast it!" Miss Pacifica swung her gaze around to the containment unit. _That should __have been my first clue_, she thought. Ordinary Bureau clerks weren't issued the expensive, unique Intelligent Devices; they'd have Storage Devices or none at all. That their victim had had her Device immediately marked her as something other than what they'd expected to find.

Since she was looking that way, Miss Pacifica actually saw the seeking orb of rainbow-streaked light hover over the Device and wink out.

"Dante, I know what she was doing."

"_Was_ doing?" He looked at the screen and saw the blonde drop her arms and the rune vanish from under her feet. "Damn, she is finished. What was it?"

"Looking for her Device."

"Oh, hell."

They shared a quick look. They'd been partners for a long time; they'd had plans start to fall apart on them before. Each knew what the other was thinking.

"No," Miss Pacifica said after a moment. "No, it's too much. We can't afford to pass up a chance like this one."

"How do we fight? Neither of _us_ has the power to use magic under AMF. We're outclassed."

"I know. That's why we won't do the fighting." She whirled back to the terminal and began to rapidly press spots on the touchpad. A second screen opened next to the surveillance image. "_These_ will."


	2. Chapter 2

Tobias Caterham gritted his teeth, hands tightly gripping his Storage Device. It looked like a common production-line staff type, but he'd had a fair amount of customization work done over the years. With his square jaw and crew-cut blond hair, he looked like what he was, a soldier. He had twenty years of experience on one kind of battlefield or another, from mass battles to small unit engagements, from wilderness to urban conflict. He didn't need that experience, though, to know that his current orders were bad news.

_The prisoner has escaped her cell and gotten by the others. We're cooking up something for her, so hold her off as long as you can._

It was that "as long as you can" part he didn't like. Lucerne had _assumed_ Caterham was going to lose. That wasn't good. It suggested that "escaped" and "gotten by" weren't any reference to clever trickery but the use of brute force. _Under an AMF._ Had they accidentally snatched one of those combat cyborgs? There were supposed to be a good dozen or so of them under the Bureau's control from what he'd heard on the rumor mill.

At least he had a little bit of lead time to prepare himself, to get his Device and Barrier Jacket ready and set up a few spells for what he expected would be a very unpleasant experience.

The facility's holding cells had been in a separate building apart from the other structures, probably so the AMF didn't interfere with regular operations by its inhabitants. Thus, Caterham knew where the prisoner would emerge from the security building unless she chose to go right through a wall, and he'd planted a trap for her. The instant she emerged, a rune blazed into existence beneath her and chains of magical force snaked up towards her. Even as they did, the weed-grown, buckled tiles of the courtyard crumbled aside as two manlike shapes, nine feet tall and four-armed, formed of rock, erupted from the ground. Figuring the binds and the golems would occupy her for a while, Caterham began incanting, the fire-orange Mid-style rune taking shape beneath his feet to gather mana for something powerful and explosive.

Except that his enemy wasn't cooperating.

~X X X~

Vivio wasn't an experienced combat mage; most of her battles had been on the practice course rather than in the field. Still, while her tactical thinking wasn't anywhere near as developed as her friends and family, she _did_ learn from her mistakes, and in the past she'd been snared by trap spells. She'd only taken one step through the door before flinging herself back, which had been enough to trigger the trap but not enough for her to get caught. The burning orange chains followed her, homing in—then winked out of existence as they hit the threshold, de-linked by the building's AMF. Vivio then rushed outside, even as the golems took shape.

The golems were pretty intimidating, she had to admit, with their size, extra arms, and burning orange eyes above slitlike mouths. Her friend Corona, though, was a much better golem-maker and they'd sparred plenty of times, so the idea was at least familiar. They lunged at her, moving as fast as a person despite being made from rock. Vivio ducked as two stone fists whipped by over her head from both of one golem's right hands, and she hammered her own fist against the creature's leg, sending chips of stone flying.

She'd hoped to shatter the leg, crippling the golem, but the magical construct was tough. Vivio wished she had Burning Glory; in his Revolver Form he could function like a Belkan Armed Device and hit a lot harder than she could manage on her own. The golem mule-kicked, knocking her sprawling; though the blow did not real damage it was a reminder not to waste her time on wishes and woolgathering.

**"Titan Assault."**

The cannon spell's impact did a lot more than just push her down; in fact it lifted her up and slammed her hard into the wall of the security building, smashing a Vivio-shaped crater into the concrete. She yelped in pain; it had been a solid attack and since no Intelligent Device meant no autoguard, she'd had to eat it with her Barrier Jacket alone.

_Stupid, rookie mistake!_ she all but screamed at herself. She'd totally lost track of the mage, so busy had she been with his trap and his constructs. Indeed, she hadn't even noticed him at all. Vivio pushed herself free of the wall and turned, trying to find him, but the golems were upon her. One's massive lower arms wrapped around her, pinning her arms to her sides, while its upper fists began to rise and fall like triphammers, slamming into her with brutal blows. She had to get free, but raw physical strength wasn't going to do it, and she couldn't get her hands free for a proper blow.

So she did the only thing she could: she used her head.

Head-butting something made of rock is rarely a good idea. Even when delivering a magic-enhanced stroke into which desperation had caused her to pour as much energy as she could. Even when wearing a Barrier Jacket that covered her body, even the apparently uncovered parts, with a field of defensive magic. Vivio's ears rang like a bell, pain exploded through the front of her skull, and she felt something wet and sticky on her forehead where she'd managed to cut it.

The golem's head, on the other hand, exploded.

The damage had been enough to disrupt the construct's cohesion; it startled to crumble apart almost at once, and it dropped Vivio when its arms fell into elemental rock. Vivio stumbled slightly when she hit the ground and almost fell, but managed to keep her balance.

_Can't afford to stand around loopy!_ she told herself, knowing her enemies weren't going to hesitate just because she'd taken one down.

"Protection!" she cast just in time, and the second golem collided with the shimmering rainbow dome, stumbling off to the side before righting itself. Vivio dropped the spell and took to the air, figuring that being able to move in three dimensions was an advantage against a foe who could only move in two. The mage raised his staff towards her.

**"Ogre Seeker."**

Four bolts of brilliant orange spat towards her, their courses bending in mid-flight to track her movements. She dropped, cutting her flight power to fall like a stone so that the first one zipped over her head, then she waited until she was within a couple of feet of the ground to spring up and forward again so that the next two shots crashed into the courtyard tiles and sent up showers of dust. A hastily conjured Round Shield caught one that was following too closely, but the one that had initially missed her was far enough behind her that the mage guided it around the shield to take her in the side. Vivio grunted, but didn't hesitate.

"Radiant Shooter!"

A half-dozen rainbow orbs streaked down at him.

**"Fomorian Wall."**

His barrier spell stopped them.

"Golem, burn her!"

The golem's lipless mouth opened to reveal a burning well of bright orage, the same hue as its creator's magic. In the next instant it spewed forth a shining ray of fiery energy. Vivio dodged the blast, zipping around it as it cut like a flaming sword across the sky, Unfortunately, it was meant only as a distraction from the next attack.

**"Firbolg Gauntlet."**

A blast of fire sprayed from the staff's tip, expanding into a giant, blazing hand as wide across as Vivio was tall. She couldn't avoid it entirely, but was able to pull up out of the way so that the binding spell clamped down on her ankle instead of her whole body. She'd be a sitting duck, but could at least cast spells.

The two of them started casting at once, but the kidnapper had the advantage. His extra years of experience and raw practice balanced Vivio's superior ability when it came to linking mana, but what settled the matter was his possession of a Device, allowing him to process that mana into a spell faster than she could on her own.

**"Giant—"**

"Sacred—"

**"Smasher."**

Luckily, Vivio realized what was likely to happen. More luckily, she had a natural talent for parallel processing.

"Round Shield!"

The searing orange buster slammed into the girl's shield spell with enough impact to make her shudder, actually jolting her back, but the shield held, keeping the spell from getting through and letting her finish her own attack spell.

"—Cluster!"

A shining bolt of rainbow light cannoned from her outstretched hand. The mage at once raised a shield of his own to block the spell, a mirror of what Vivio was doing, as if they were engaging in some kind of formal duel.

Except that Sacred Cluster wasn't a buster-type spell.

The blast of rainbow light divided into six separate bolts around halfway between the two combatants. Unlike an omnidirectional barrier spell which provided a dome of protection, the kidnapper's shield was, although a tougher defense, a flat wall that defended only one side. The Sacred Cluster bolts curved easily around it and hammered him from all sides.

_Gotcha!_ Vivio thought, grinning, as the binding spell vanished. She dove at him at once, his momentary incapacity letting her close the range. He wasn't knocked out, but as he pushed himself to his feet she was on him, her foot whipping up into his midsection to drive the breath from his body, which she followed up with a punch to the face that broke his nose, his Barrier Jacket obviously no longer able to stand the punishment. He reeled back, and Vivio hit him with a spinning kick that left him sprawled like a rag doll. The second golem fell apart, being deprived of its master's sustaining mana, and Vivio let out her breath with a whoosh. She was definitely _not_ used to fighting this caliber of opposition in genuine battle!

The dull hum of engines, therefore, drew a groan from her as she spun towards the sound and saw a dozen or so stubby, vaguely humanoid robotic drones in sea-green and sky blue colors flying towards her.

~X X X~

"What are those things?" Dante asked.

"Alduin attack drones. They were designed to engage enemy knights on the ground or in the air. There were originally thirty-six, but only fifteen were still functional after all this time inert. I trust they'll be able to subdue our friend."

The robot nearest to the librarian raised its arm and two projectiles spat from a launch port. Miss Pacifica and Dante watched as they streaked towards her; she flew aside and the micromissiles exploded into fiery blasts when they impacted the tiles.

"Those aren't magic-damage attacks!" Dante yelped. "Those drones are using lethal mass weapons!"

Miss Pacifica quickly accessed the computer.

"I don't think they _have_ a non-lethal setting. They're battle machines from the age of the Belkan wars."

"Can't you shut them down?"

"Probably. But why should I?"

"_What?_"

"If they had a non-lethal setting we could use them to keep her under control while she works for us. But they don't and there's basically no way we can do it. The two of us and Caterham combined might—_might—_be able to beat her in a pitched battle without her Device. But we can't keep her secure. We can't force her to work. We haven't any leverage over her, so our only hope if we don't want to abandon this project is to keep her from escaping and make sure she can't be followed back to us. It's going to be _noticed_ when someone this powerful goes missing."

"So what, you want to _kill_ her?"

Her eyes were as hard and cold as chips of ice.

"Do you have any other ideas?"

~X X X~

The Alduin attack drones had a complex series of algorithms by which they determined their combat tactics. New threats such as Vivio were assessed as unknown. When she demonstrated flight capacity they upgraded their threat assessment to moderate. A spray of Radiant Shooters which fended off their initial charge and made them scatter did not change that, but when she deflected an energy beam, a micromissile salvo, and several kinetic shots with a Protection Powered the threat was upgraded to serious.

When she counterattacked with a Sacred Heart that blew through one drone and tore a large chunk out of a second, they upgraded her to critical. One drone swept in towards her, extending a blade on its arm as if to slash at her, its joint seams beginning to pulse in a brilliant aqua color.

Then it exploded.

The concussive blast sent Vivio hurtling through the air to hammer into the side of the largest building in the facility, which she presumed was the command center since that was where she'd scried Burning Glory's location. The explosion had badly damaged her Barrier Jacket; the white jacket was little more than sleeves and there were a number of rips in the bodysuit beneath, the physical damage reflecting the defensive fields' deteriorating condition. Because of that, the impact had hurt a lot more than it otherwise would have; she almost blacked out.

~X X X~

"What was that?" Dante yelped. The treasure hunter had gotten a double dose of the explosion, once on their screen and once when they heard it in real life; the girl had impacted the wall not two floors above.

"According to these schematics," Miss Pacifica said, a little shaken herself, "t-these Alduin combat drones are equipped to be suicide bombers in the face of enemies where victory by conventional weaponry is in doubt."

"Who'd program something stupid like that?" Dante's self-interest was so much a core concept of his life that he'd always been toweringly contemptuous of suicide and self-sacrifice.

"It makes sense, though. These aren't people, after all. They're not even true AIs, which might be considered artificial life. They're just weapons."

On screen, they saw the librarian twitch. Two of the drones swept in at her, firing, but she'd raised a barrier of rainbow light to cover herself. Despite the devastating explosion, the girl was not only still _alive_, but still functionally _fighting_.

~X X X~

The information passed rapidly from one Alduin drone to another.

**Threat Level: Extreme.**

~X X X~

Vivio fought with a desperation that bordered on insanity. She'd barely been able to gather herself to raise the Protection spell to stop the follow-up attack from delivering the _coup de grace_. She'd then detonated it with a Barrier Burst, blasting the defensive spell's energy outwards to disorient and distract the robots. Flying out from the building, she seized one by the arm and kicked it into another drone, then used another as a shield to keep herself safe from a spray of slugs. That reduced the drone to scrap, cutting the number of enemies to nine. The problem was, she wasn't sure if her Barrier Jacket could take another hit; it was badly compromised and while it probably could hold off a few kinetic slugs—presuming they didn't have the power of a linear rifle—or energy beams, a missile hit was a different story.

_This must be how Fate-mama feels like in Sonic Form,_ she thought, _except that she gets to have Bardiche's help and a lot more speed!_ She staved off a couple of the deadly missiles with a Round Shield and immediately fired back a Sacred Cluster, which destroyed two more drones and badly damaged another three. _Maybe I've got a—_

She didn't even get a chance to complete her hopeful thought. Two cables snaked around her, tangling her arms and legs, wrapping around her body. She fought against them, even as the two drones that had fired them began to reel her in like a fisherman with a trout. The other drones swept in towards her, but they did not fire. Were they out of ammunition?

Then she noticed the telltale glow from their joints, like she'd seen just before the near-crippling explosion. Only that had been one drone. This was _all_ of them, including the ones that had snared her. Vivio heaved against the cables, feeling them start to give, but there just wasn't enough _time_. Even if she got loose, she couldn't fly free in time, and even a Protection Powered wouldn't stop _seven_ of the sacrificial blasts.

"Mode Release!" she screamed in desperation. Her Barrier Jacket vanished, leaving herself in her normal library uniform.

Then her world dissolved in sound and fury.

~X X X~

"What by the Holy of Holies is she _doing_?" Miss Pacifica exclaimed as she watched her prisoner disperse her Barrier Jacket and prepare to take the impact of the titanic blast without defenses. Was she afraid that the explosion would leave her dying but not dead with her protections in place, and so wished to spare herself a slow, lingering end?

There was a kind of pathos about it, she found. As she watched the blast fill the display screen, felt the shaking, Miss Pacifica was surprised to discover herself a little bit sad that it had ended that way. She was human, after all, and rooted for the underdog, the heroic last stand to succeed as much as the next person did when she went to the movies.

When the dust and smoke began to clear, though, and she saw a silhouette within the thinning clouds, which a few more seconds stood revealed as the blonde walking, apparently untouched, out of the blast area, the touch of sympathy vanished. In its place were confusion, shock, and a strong dose of pure, uncomprehending terror.

"She's a monster!" Dante babbled. "Not even a combat cyborg could have lived through that without taking damage!"

Had Vivio been there, she could have explained to them about the Saint's Armor, the genetic legacy from her predecessor, Sankt Kaiser Olivie. It was a series of reflexive, interlocking defensive magics that would activate whenever she was struck by a damaging attack. She had a feeling it had been designed primarily to prevent assassination attempts, since she could shrug off almost anything short of an Arc-en-Ciel blast or its equivalent. It also didn't function at all when she had any kind of defensive magic on her body like a Barrier Jacket. Vivio used one because the Saint's Armor was _exhausting_; three or four uses would leave her unconscious from mana drain from a perfectly rested state—and the Armor did _not_ discriminate between weak and strong attacks. A single multi-shot shooting spell like Radiant Shooter could hit her multiple times and overwhelm her mana reserves with attacks she'd have been able to shrug off with ordinary magic. That made the Saint's Armor very inefficient for normal magical combat.

For tanking single, massive assaults, though, it worked very well indeed.

Miss Pacifica and Dante didn't know any of that, though. They only knew that their prisoner had, without _apparent_ defense, emerged unhurt from a blast that could have leveled mages with multiple As in their ranking. Emerged, brushed some dust off, and started walking towards the door of the building where they were currently located.

With wide, staring eyes they looked at the screen, then at each other, and wordlessly came to a shared conclusion. The aqueous light of Miss Pacifica's magic swelled around them and they vanished, already executing a series of rapid teleports, designed to confuse any attempts to track them, which would carry them to their escape craft. It hurt to pass on the opportunity of a lifetime, but money didn't spend very well from the inside of a prison cell.

~X X X~

The doors in the ancient Alduin facility irised open as Vivio approached rather than sliding. She found that a little disconcerting, the way small things will take on too much importance when one has less energy for background processing. She was exhausted physically, magically, and mentally from the series of fights, and she had no idea what, if anything, she had left for dealing with whomever had sent the drones after her.

As she moved cautiously through the corridors, though, no alarms went off, no security fields tried to trap her, no drones or guards appeared to challenge her presence. Though everything was active and functioning, lights on, ventilation systems keeping the air fresh, there was no sign of activity. Following the results of her search for Burning Glory, Vivio made her way into what looked to be some kind of operations center. Several holographic and flatpanel display screens were open and showing imagery, including what looked like a surveillance view of the courtyard outside, but Vivio ignored these, rushing to a containment unit sitting on one of the high-backed blue leather chairs. She opened it at once; thankfully it was not locked, and she plucked out the ring inside.

"Burning Glory! Are you all right?"

**"It's good to see you, mistress. I don't believe I've suffered any damage, but you appear to be in need of medical attention."**

"That's what I get for going into battle without my partner."

**"Then this is an escape?"**

"Yeah. Do you know what happened to the people who had you?"

**"I am sorry, mistress. The containment unit blocked my sensory and communications functions."**

That was only to be expected, Vivio supposed.

"That's okay. Maybe there's surveillance video of them on this computer's security system. For now, though, let's just make a call to the local authorities. This is an Administered World, so I should be able to arrange transport back to Midchilda easily enough. I hope nobody's worrying about me back home."

A communication screen opened as Burning Glory dialed into the local network. Vivio's eyes flew to a readout in one corner.

"Oh, good grief, is that Cranagan time?"

~X X X~

Lutecia idly poked at her cutlet with the slender silver fork. Candlelight gleamed off the polished tableware, glittered in the depths of the crystal, and smoldered in the ruby depths of the wine, but she barely noticed. A romantic dinner for two was basically worthless when served to one. Vivio was late, she hadn't called to say why, and she hadn't answered any of Lutecia's own calls. Worried, she'd called Vivio's mothers, but Nanoha had told her that they hadn't been contacted about any medical emergency. While that was reassuring in one way, it was also miserable in an another, since it gave no explanation for why her girlfriend was apparently blowing her off completely on their most important (as yet) anniversary.

She wondered what Avercini's dessert menu had to offer that night. Something decadent and luxurious was definitely called for when being stood up. With chocolate. Definitely with chocolate. And whipped cream. With more chocolate on top.

_Maybe Caro's free?_ Venting over romantic setbacks was definitely better done to sympathetic friends of the same gender. And pigging out on chocolate was best done in a private home. Especially if alcohol became involved and things reached the throwing-up or passing-out stages. _And you know your life sucks when you are deliberately making plans which will end in nausea or unconsciousness_, she thought ruefully.

"Lutecia!"

Lutecia's head snapped up. As the saying went, she'd know that voice anywhere. The girl was all but sprinting through the restaurant, a flustered maitre'd' flailing after her since she obviously hadn't waited to be shown in. She wasn't dressed for the date, either, still wearing her Infinity Library staff uniform.

"Vivio, what happened? Where have you been?" She rose to greet the younger woman.

"I'm so sorry I'm late. Some stupid relic thieves kidnapped me this morning, and I had to blast my way out of an AMF-equipped concrete holding cell, and fight a couple of guards and a mercenary mage without Burning Glory since they'd stolen him, and then there were these attack drones that tried to kill me. And when I called for a rescue ship first they insisted on running medical magic on me in sick bay, and the whole trip back from Aldu they insisted on debriefing me about the kidnappers and the fight and everything, so I couldn't even call you and tell you I'd be late! And I came here straight from the spaceport since I figured if I took the time to go home and change I'd miss dinner completely."

The words had come tumbling out one after another without, so far as Lutecia would tell, pauses for breath. As a Shadow, she was used to adapting on the fly to new information and rapidly-changing situations. That experience didn't seem to help much. The maitre'd' actually seemed to be adapting better than she was; as soon as Vivio had started mentioning things like "kidnapping" and "attack drones" he had started backing away slowly.

"Wow, you look incredible!" Vivio exclaimed even as she'd caught her breath. "Did you buy that dress especially for tonight?"

Lutecia still was not able to respond coherently.

"Um, do I still have blood on my face or something? I'd better go freshen up. I'll be right back!" She leaned forward, brushed her lips against Lutecia's cheek, and scurried off towards the restrooms. After a couple of minutes, Lutecia's brain finally made the full transition from "upset at being stood up" through "worried that her girlfriend had been through all that" to "relief that everything was okay." At that point she glanced at the time and realized that if Vivio wanted something to eat she'd better order right away if they were going to make it to the opera on time. Which in its way was too bad, because Lutecia was finding that she wanted happy chocolate as much as she'd wanted drown-her-sorrows chocolate. Maybe they could stop for ice cream on their way to Ember later on.

Another couple of minutes passed, and she started to wonder what was taking Vivio. She hadn't really needed "freshening up," so it wasn't like she was spending a lot of time in front of the makeup mirror. Lutecia slipped from her chair and crossed the dining room towards the restrooms. She pushed open the door and slipped into a ladies' room that was absolutely spotless, from the burnt-sienna carpet to the gleaming black tile and brass fixtures.

It was also empty.

"Vivio?" she called, but got no answer. Her heart thudded wildly as she thought of possible scenarios. The stall doors went all the way to the floor for privacy, so she couldn't see if there were any familiar—or unfamiliar—feet showing beneath them. With soft steps she moved forward.

Suddenly, the door to her left flew open and a hand clamped around her wrist, yanking her into the stall. Lutecia was already twisting her arm to break the hold and summoning mana for a counterattack spell when a pair of very familiar lips closed over her own.

"Vivio, what are you doing?" she managed to murmur into the kiss.

"I come back from kidnapping and life-or-death battle to find my girlfriend wearing _that dress_ and you're asking me what I'm doing?" she purred. From behind herself, Lutecia heard the soft click as Vivio's fingers found the door bolt and pushed it into place. Her left hand had already found the slit in the dress's side and in a few moments had discovered the answer to the stockings-or-pantyhose question.

Then she paused for a second and looked searchingly into her girlfriend's eyes.

"Lutecia? Did you not want me to—?" she asked hesitantly.

"Actually..."

Lutecia's arms wound around Vivio's neck.

"...before I came in here I was just thinking how I was hungry for dessert."

She pulled the younger woman hard against herself and recaptured her mouth.

_Now that I think about it, I wonder if the opera house has storage closets_, was her last coherent thought.

~X X X~

_A/N: This story was inspired by an exchange between RadiantBeam and deathcurse concerning possible plots to get Vivio involved in Lutecia's Shadow world. One of them mentioned how she definitely didn't want to do the "Vivio kidnapped by Lutecia's enemies" cliché, and the other noted how most likely Vivio would just break out on her own if that happened. Then deathcurse mentioned the scenario of Vivio showing up late for their date with a spiel of excuses about the kidnapping...and I made the mistake of mentioning that I thought it would make a good fic. They both turned on me and intimated that the person who thinks up such ideas ought to be willing to answer the request. ^_^_

_And hey, I've been itching for the chance to show off the Shadowverse-version Saint's Armor for a while, so that was a bonus for me, too!_

_The title for the opera they plan to attend was actually the label on the base of my Alter Sankt Kaiser Vivio figure. Or in other words, yes, Lutecia is taking Vivio to see an opera about her original. Bonus points if you noticed that!_

_As a technological note, I observe that despite the entire area being under AMF, Jail Scaglietti's base had functional communication screens (including the big one where he foolishly allowed Erio and Caro to do the cheer-up speech for Fate), so that is my inspiration for letting a screen pop up in Vivio's jail cell._

~X X X~

**Vivio's Magical Omake Theater!**

The security door at the end of the corridor opened with a clang, and the sound of footsteps echoed down the hall. They stopped about halfway up the row of cells, revealing themselves as belonging to a uniformed Cranagan Metropolitan Security officer and a thin, not unhandsome man with dirty blond hair pulled back in a rattail.

"Takamachi, Alphine, you're out," the policeman said. Vivio and Lutecia sat up and approached the door. Five other women watched them sullenly, envying the two who would not have to spend the night in the cell.

"Hey, ladies," Victor Stormhawk said with a huge grin. "So, I hear it was a hot date."

The guard lowered the barrier and opened the cell door to let them out, then resecured it behind them.

"Storm, I appreciate that you came down to bail us out at one-thirty in the morning," Lutecia began.

"As well you should. It's a good friend who rises from his bed to get his coworker and her girlfriend released from durance vile on...what was it, again? Oh, yes, charges of public lewdness, commission of an indecent act in a public place, destruction of a security camera, public intoxication—no, that one was dropped after the test results came back under the legal limit, meaning that you were doing it all sober."

She glared at him.

"I'm sure the entertainment value more than made up for the inconvenience, given that I know the only time you've ever gone to sleep before four a.m. in your life is when someone's blasted you unconscious."

"I never said I was sleeping," he said, his grin widening.

The officer let them out of the holding section.

"You can pick up your possessions at the booking desk," he said with a gesture in the right direction, then went back to his post.

"I thought you just said you rose from your bed to bail us out?" Vivio asked. She was, in some ways, still quite innocent.

"Ask me how I know that Celica is busy expunging this little incident from the database," he said.

Vivio blushed. Lutecia didn't, but gently touched his forearm.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to ruin your evening."

He waved it off.

"You'd do the same for me, Alphine. Don't sweat it. And besides, I got all this great material for giving you grief. For example, didn't your covert operations training suggest that loud screaming in an alley behind a nightclub will attract attention?"

"I said I was sorry," muttered Vivio.


End file.
